Final Fantasy Challenge: Final Fantasy XVI Part I. “Come to Me, Ifrit!”

This one is going to be a little bit different. I played Final Fantasy XVI when it came out, and I even wrote in my journal about it, but I forgot all about it. In the interim between Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II, I got kind of burnt out on the series, which was why it took me two years to write a new entry. I have a bunch of aborted essays on my hard drive, but they won’t be going up. I don’t like them. However, I never stopped thinking about Final Fantasy XVI, and starting Final Fantasy VI has got me thinking about it even more. So, this will likely be a part one, but it might be the only part. I said I would likely replay the game when I finish XV, but I also still have all of my recollections and I’m kind of replaying it with a buddy of mine at the same time. Well, he’s playing on stream and I’m jumping on the call to be a dick. So, I think I’ll do a bit of a stream of consciousness recollection and see if I need to write another post on the game when I get back to it.

So, I’ve mentioned a couple of times since I came back that I really enjoyed Final Fantasy XVI. It wasn’t one of my favorite games, but it’s the game that straddles the line between the S-tier games, XII, VI and XIV and the A-Tier games, VII, V and IX. I don’t know where it falls on either spectrum, because while I think it’s good, I do think that a lot of the criticisms of the game (not the narrative) are valid. This is a game that is at once beautiful and gripping, but slow and tedious at the same time. It’s a game that takes forever to get done, but it’s not long enough. Ultimately, I think the good parts vastly outweigh the bad, especially in comparison to other games in the series, but it is not a perfect game.

What got me to write this, though, is fascination at how much story they packed into Final Fantasy V, and how much more they’re packing into Final Fantasy VI. Yes, those were games that helped pioneer the genre, but they have so much character and story, and yet they are limited to pixel characters and text boxes. Meanwhile, Final Fantasy XVI has fully motion captured cutscenes with naturalistic anime artwork and voice work by Ben Starr and Ralph Ineson. It’s hard to compete. Cid’s death is a work of art, the best death scene in the series with a bullet, and it’s largely due to the fact it’s got Ralph fucking Ineson giving a hell of a Shakespearean soliloquy. No matter how well done Galuf or Tellah’s deaths were, they were all sprites, dialogue boxes and combat screens. Even the famous death of Aerith cannot hold a candle to a fully voice, fully realized cutscene in a modern game powered by a Playstation 5.

That’s what makes Final Fantasy XVI work so well, because it takes advantage of that. There are some dumb arguments out there about Jill not getting enough character development (because people don’t know what character development is) or that Clive is a limited character (yeah, I can at least understand where they’re getting that about Jill even if they’re wrong but that is insane), but in reality, the game is heavily focused on writing, narrative and characterization. Everybody gets a huge amount of character development. Not just your party members, not just Clive or the villains, but side characters like Charon, Goetz and Tarja. I rewatched Tarja’s side quest about her mentor and it was heartwrenching. Fucking Blackthorne gets an indepth character study and he’s the blacksmith. Jill has the whole game to develop her character, and while we can talk about how much of her character development is dependent on her romantic relationship with Clive, but first we’ll need to talk about Tifa Lockheart, but then we’ll need to talk about how she also has an entire arc about growing into the leader who will lead the world into a better tomorrow. Regardless of what you think happened at the end, it’s going to be Jill that brings the world into the better world, one without Bearers and Dominants. Without threats from monsters, where the world can grow beyond into something good.

The narrative is wound up into a lot of different places and I feel like it’s so strong, possibly the strongest in the entire series, but it requires doing everything. This is exactly what people said they wanted from JRPGs, where sidequests aren’t just means of getting super swords to hit super bosses with, but something like Chrono Trigger, where they develop the characters and give them arcs. These sidequests are beautiful, well written and fucking tedious as Hell. I did all of them, I loved them all, but even I can admit that a lot of the side quests really are “go to a place, fight some guys, watch a long cutscene, go back to the Hideaway and watch another long cutscene.” At the time when I played it, it didn’t matter because I loved these characters, I loved watching how they grew and I wanted as much as I could with them, but I also kind of see where people are getting the idea that Jill or Joshua or Dion don’t have any character growth. I don’t see how you can say Jill has no lines (yep, that was a real Kotaku article, everyone, literally saying Jill had no lines in the entire game), but I can understand if people think she doesn’t get development if they didn’t do her sidequests.

It’s a shame, too, because the missions and sidequests get better as the game goes on. I’ve said that, much like the Last Jedi is a second half film, Final Fantasy XVI is a second half game. Even the most boring sidequests are far more compelling once you pass the timeskip, mostly because there aren’t any quests where you have to give people food or whatever (although, no joke, I genuinely love that sidequest). The combat also gets more engaging as Clive picks up more Eikons to battle with. Phoenix and Garuda do not really show off what you can do, and I’ve seen some people say the game doesn’t really open up until you get Odin. I don’t agree, but man, once I got Zantetsuken, I really couldn’t put it back in my toolbox.

Still, I feel like the game’s pace works well. Early on, it’s a bit muddled, but it all eventually comes together and leads to some of the most insane, most climactic fights in the series. However, they’re only like this because they’re fully 3D rendered, fully voice acted, full action combats. There’s no way the fight with Bahamut (IN FUCKING SPACE) would be as cool with an ATB meter. Yes, it would have blown my mind if, midway through the fight, Phoenix and Ifrit merged together like the conversations in the middle of some Final Fantasy VI fights, but it has nothing on what we see with the spectacle on display in this game.

The fights with Titan, with Bahamut and with Barnabas are some of the best in the series. The duel with Barnabas at the top of his castle, over his ruined kingdom, is one of the best Final Fantasy moments ever. I was on the edge of my seat the whole fight. It was up there with the fight against God Kefka, Rebirth’s Sephiroth fight, Elidibus at the Crystal Tower, Emet-Selch and the bosh rush at the end of Ridorana Lighthouse, and none of them compare with the fight with Bahamut. Nothing in any game is quite like the fight with Bahamut.

It’s a spectacle of a game, but it’s also slow, sad and bittersweet. It was my second favorite game of 2023, far better, I thought, than Baldur’s Gate 3, but not quite as good as Tears of the Kingdom. It came close, though.